You really need to play this game

[dylansko]

The fact there are less than 300 people who even own this game on PS4 is a travesty. This game is incredibly underappreciated and underrated. You need to play it and you need to play it on the hardest difficulty. This game presents you a challenge that few games are willing to give you, one that isn't about quick twitch combat skills but about your decision making and being willing to punish you for your choice, not simply giving you different cosmetic choices or negative stat debuffs. You'll be asked to choose between saving yourself or saving others at the risk that there won't be more precious medicine to go around when you need it most. This is a game that forces you to grasp that you truly cannot save everyone and it does it by forcing you to chose to save yourself in a way that's not just missing out on a few stimpaks out of the hundreds you've saved in an optional quest. You'll find yourself trading your last bullet for a slice of toast. It's a gaming experience unlike anything I've yet to come across and you'll certainly find yourself getting sucked into the mystery of it all.

 

That being said I need to give a disclaimer that the PS4 version of this game is prone to crashing, ubiquitous long load times, and some issues with textures. I also ran into a point where I had over 100 saves on a run and had to go back and delete some which seemed to help a bit with performance. Without these flaws this game would be nothing less than a masterpiece. and even after navigating around them for a 40~ hour platinum run I wish I could go back fresh and experience it for the first time again. It absolutely deserves the $25 to play it, if not just to support these developers and hopefully get them a more competent PS port partner for whatever the next project they put out.

[FawltyPowers]

1 hour ago, dylansko said:

That being said I need to give a disclaimer that the PS4 version of this game is prone to crashing, ubiquitous long load times, and some issues with textures. I also ran into a point where I had over 100 saves on a run and had to go back and delete some which seemed to help a bit with performance.

 

Glad you enjoyed it but what you've written, coupled with what I just read about the game in a review (survival mechanics, it's painful to play but that is the point of it, fighting is clunky and unflattering) and I don't think I'd go near this even if it was free.

 

It seems to be getting a cult following, it's aimed at a niche audience as you're not supposed to like it so 300 players seems about right to me.

Edited August 10, 2020 by FawltyPowers

[Phoenixgaming1]

2 hours ago, dylansko said:

The fact there are less than 300 people who even own this game on PS4 is a travesty.

Actually that's only whats tracked on the website. this site doesn't track every single user.

[dylansko]

27 minutes ago, Phoenixgaming1 said:

Actually that's only whats tracked on the website. this site doesn't track every single user.

My mistake there, meant to specify that! I'd say the real number probably isn't too far off though with the utter lack of marketing for the console versions. 

47 minutes ago, FawltyPowers said:

 

Glad you enjoyed it but what you've written, coupled with what I just read about the game in a review (survival mechanics, it's painful to play but that is the point of it, fighting is clunky and unflattering) and I don't think I'd go near this even if it was free.

 

It seems to be getting a cult following, it's aimed at a niche audience as you're not supposed to like it so 300 players seems about right to me.

I completely get that perspective on it and I'd probably agree in theory but it's a pretty fantastic subversion of what at least I've personally come to expect in a game. It's definitely changed my view on the reward cycle in gaming and I think while palate cleanser definitely isn't the right word, it's the best I can use to explain how it feels to really struggle not in a git gud way but in a real "human" way in your decision making. Totally understand it's not for everyone but I'd still recommend everyone look into it like you did and see if it's the type of new experience that they want to get into and I think if more people were aware of it they might just take the plunge 

[FawltyPowers]

1 hour ago, dylansko said:

I completely get that perspective on it and I'd probably agree in theory but it's a pretty fantastic subversion of what at least I've personally come to expect in a game. It's definitely changed my view on the reward cycle in gaming and I think while palate cleanser definitely isn't the right word, it's the best I can use to explain how it feels to really struggle not in a git gud way but in a real "human" way in your decision making. Totally understand it's not for everyone but I'd still recommend everyone look into it like you did and see if it's the type of new experience that they want to get into and I think if more people were aware of it they might just take the plunge 

 

It's posts like this on unknown games I find interesting. I've got quite a variety of games in my library, most aren't on my profile yet and quite a few are more obscure titles with a player base of less than 500.

 

I have some of them because comments are made on this forum, like yours and I'll look into it, read reviews, watch gameplay.

 

This one isn't for me but like you say, its good to read up yourself as you never know what you can be missing out on.

[Killjoy_21]

This game is probably one the most hidden gem in the PS Store since it was launched. I don't remember how I got any info about it, but since I watched few videos on YT, something indescribable hit me in my mind telling me "you have to have this". And that's what I've done, few years later.

Now, I've just started the game today, and I feel quite absorbed, not completely due to main language (and a lot of dialogues) to understand every single time. Btw, I recommend it only to those survival/dark atmosphere/rpg players and lovers.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Killjoy_21

[Kavatus]

I got interest on this game after seeing review of it (and Pathologic 1) by youtuber Mandaloregaming. I rarely buy games over 10€ but this one was one of them. 

 

I have love/hate relationship with how game treats you. Usually after several hour session I have to take week long pause from it before I can continue it. Stress of trying to do all/most of day's work is horrible. Problem is that I have hard time continueing as I cant remember what my plans were. 

 

Combat is like in real life: if you see knife, run away fast. Unless you have firearm. 

 

This is really hard to recommend to anyone as it's so different from most games. I mean there isnt really palette for this game that if you like these games, then you (will most likely) like this one too. 

 

Guide on psnp suggests to do blind run first on original difficulty which I'm currently doing but it will make you regret it (in good way if that is even possible). 

 

I know this makes no sense, but game really doesn't really fit in current gaming landscape and I'm glad that I picked it. 

[poetic_justice_]

On 9/4/2021 at 2:42 AM, Killjoy_21 said:

This game is probably one the most hidden gem in the PS Store since it was launched. I recommend it only to those survival/dark atmosphere/rpg players and lovers.

 

Thank you for the clarification. Survival game mechanics can be enjoyable but I am burnt out on dark atmospheres. The trailer clearly depicts the brooding darkness, but I debated pushing through that because the story seemed interesting. A doctor's son returning to help his dead father's medical practice in a mysterious town? That definitely caught my interest. However, adding punishing RPG mechanics to the mix sounds like a slog. I recently finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and the intense portrayal of psychosis left me wanting to escape into sunshine after 8 hours. I don't think I could do Pathologic 2 for 40 hours+. Thanks for the heads up.

Edited July 9, 2022 by poetic_justice_

[Mindshred]

Picked this up on sale on the recommendations here! Definitely seems interesting, and I'm always down to try original games.

[CaptainCobana]

Does it run better on PS5?

 

[Mindshred]

On 8/24/2022 at 5:00 PM, CaptainCobana said:

Does it run better on PS5?

 

 

Yes. Or rather, to clarify, it's actually playable on PS5. The game is borderline unplayable on PS4 due to frequent, extremely long load times and numerous crashes during those load times. 

 

Also, I'd recommend playing the game on the lowest difficulty. It's excessively brutal on recommended difficulty, but not in a fun "challenge yourself" Dark Souls sort of way, more of a "slowly feeding your arm into a wood chipper while trying to learn another language" way. It will still be plenty difficult your first time through.

 

I'd also recommend using a guide if you're after trophies. I do think the game is neat, but there are a lot of random things you need to do for various trophies, and you can really easily lock yourself out of some of them.

 

I know that a lot of people recommend going in blind on the hardest difficulty, but that was excessively unfun for me. Turning the difficulty down and looking up what I had to do for the very vague trophies allowed me to actually start enjoying the game. 

[kuj8402]

On 8/10/2020 at 2:24 AM, dylansko said:

The fact there are less than 300 people who even own this game on PS4 is a travesty. This game is incredibly underappreciated and underrated. You need to play it and you need to play it on the hardest difficulty. This game presents you a challenge that few games are willing to give you, one that isn't about quick twitch combat skills but about your decision making and being willing to punish you for your choice, not simply giving you different cosmetic choices or negative stat debuffs. You'll be asked to choose between saving yourself or saving others at the risk that there won't be more precious medicine to go around when you need it most. This is a game that forces you to grasp that you truly cannot save everyone and it does it by forcing you to chose to save yourself in a way that's not just missing out on a few stimpaks out of the hundreds you've saved in an optional quest. You'll find yourself trading your last bullet for a slice of toast. It's a gaming experience unlike anything I've yet to come across and you'll certainly find yourself getting sucked into the mystery of it all.

 

That being said I need to give a disclaimer that the PS4 version of this game is prone to crashing, ubiquitous long load times, and some issues with textures. I also ran into a point where I had over 100 saves on a run and had to go back and delete some which seemed to help a bit with performance. Without these flaws this game would be nothing less than a masterpiece. and even after navigating around them for a 40~ hour platinum run I wish I could go back fresh and experience it for the first time again. It absolutely deserves the $25 to play it, if not just to support these developers and hopefully get them a more competent PS port partner for whatever the next project they put out.

I disagree this game was not a fun experience.  There is a reason only 80 people have played this game 100%.

[theomgkitteh]

This is what my friend keeps telling me (he got a plat in this game). And I say, "After you play The Witcher 3."

 

Pretty much a stalemate. 😃